Below are some key things you need to know in order to configure the device section of Ignition. Ignition is really great because you can download it and start learning for free.

I spent a few hours struggling with that so hopefully if you're trying to replicate this you have read this section! One thing to be mindful of is that pins A5 and A6 are used for controlling the RS 485 Shield RE/DE so they cannot be used for anything else. If this value is always '0' the drive stays stopped, but once a '1' is written the drive starts to move given other parameters such as desired frequency are correct. Then in order to know if the VFD should run, the code takes whatever is in that memory address and writes it to another shared address in the VFD. For example in this case Ignition can write a '1' or '0' to a memory address in the board. If you're not familiar with Modbus, one phrase that's always helped me understand it is 'shared' addresses. The key functions of the code are as follows:ġ) Set the board to be a Modbus TCP server (slave) for IgnitionĢ) Set the board to be a Modbus RTU Client (master) for the VFDģ) Acquire local data from a potentiometer, push button, and temp sensor The base of the code is the example Modbus TCP server and my VFD control example which is build of off the Modbus RTU client example provided in Arduino IDE if you have the Modbus library installed.

A VFD is shown in this example but if you don't have a VFD you can remove that part from the code and just work with the other data which is: on-board RGB LED, push button, temp sensor, and potentiometer.

This project will show you how to connect a MKR WiFi 1010 + MKR RS 485 Shield to Ignition using the Modbus driver in Ignition. So I decided to see if Ignition could interface with an Arduino and the result was a resounding yes. Ignition includes a PLC simulator but I found that un-exciting. I started studying how to configure Ignition SCADA for a project at work and I wanted to have a real source of data to work with before the project starts.

Ignition gateway utility